First bomb blast in 2018 leaves security personnel wounded in Baghdad

A tribal fighter has been profoundly wounded in a bomb blast in west of Baghdad, a security source said on Monday.

“A bomb placed under a vehicle, driven by a member of the Tribal Mobilization Forces, exploded at noon, while passing at al-Radwaniyah region, west of Baghdad,” the source told Alghad Press.

“Security troops cordoned off the blast scene,” the source said, adding that the ambulance transferred the injured to nearby hospital.

The blast is considered the first in Baghdad in 2018.

Violence in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State Sunni extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Thousands of IS militants as well as Iraqi civilians were killed since the government campaign, backed by paramilitary troops and the coalition was launched in October 2016 to fight the militant group.

Since then, forces took back the group’s former capital, Mosul, the town of Tal Afar, Kirkuk’s Hawija, and each of Annah, Rawa and Qaim in Anbar.

The war against IS has displaced nearly five million people, with tens of thousands of civilians and militants killed since the launch of the offensives to recapture occupied cities.